Darker With the Day
by Ripki
Summary: War changes all men; leaves no bond untested. ( The prologue for things to come.) Part 1 of the "Between the Shadow and the Soul" verse, ROTS canon divergence.


**Darker With the Day**

-o-

 _War changes all men; leaves no bond untested._

-o-

His dreams are dark, but the reality, it is far darker. From conflict to conflict, from fight to fight, there is no rest. There is only war.

Anakin Skywalker – Jedi Knight, General, the Hero With No Fear – is a sharpened blade, a superb war machine tuned to perfection. He fells his enemies with a righteous wrath, leads his hardened men into fierce battle against all odds, turning certain defeat into glorious victory. Or so they tell.

It's all propaganda, mythmaking, desperate moral boosting, of course. He has lost enough fights, have been forced to retreat, to concede, to turn away; every defeat a bitter, never forgotten mark of failure. He still has won more fights than any general alive or dead, although some of those victories he shares with Obi-Wan. Somehow those losses still weigh more than the liberated planets, the decimated enemy forces, the headless corpse of Count Dooku. None of those victories have ended the war.

The death that should have saved the Republic doesn't even offer any respite; a week after the Battle of Coruscant, the Open Circle Fleet is again racing towards another siege. The separation from Padmé is as easy as it is painful, the parting a familiar ritual, the only constant in their shared life. He leaves the Jedi Temple with acrid thoughts, with relief he doesn't bother to hide; the only thing there he would miss, he is taking with him.

The war-torn planet waiting for them is like hundred places before it, deadly and dark. His men saturate the hard ground with their blood, sow their bone fragments into the earth. He wreaks beautiful havoc among the enemy, rips out droid parts like he would sinew and blood vessels, burns the circuit apart like flesh. The stories are right on one thing at least: he fells his enemies with a terrible wrath, meting out justice with a steady hand.

Obi-Wan watches him with hooded eyes; too tired to admonish, too resigned to lecture. After all, there is no less blood on the Jedi Master's hands. Some days they bark at each other, other days they ignore each other, sometimes they share a companionable silence. Always, _always_ , they fight together, in a rush of heady power, a storm of opposite forces: compassion and ruthlessness, serenity and passion, affection and resentment. They are one and the other, both – all.

Uncounted days later, a half-victory – but still more of a defeat. No time to waste for the dead, only to count the dwindling company of the living, as _The_ _Resolute_ heads towards another battle and then another. From planet to planet, in the huge emptiness of space, there is no rest.

Anakin dreams of darkness; he wakes up to darkness.

-o-

The lights of Coruscant never dim as the planet never sleeps. Still, Padmé thinks, it's getting darker. It's getting darker every day.

Another futile, rancorous Senate session over, she goes back to her apartment. Shuts the doors and windows tight, like barriers against an invading army. Counts the minutes she can spend by herself with the fingers of one hand; too soon she has to get ready, play the hostess, plan and influence and scheme. She has to be tireless, tenacious, steadfast. She has to appear passionate and sensible, fearless and careful. All of those things she once had in abundance, but now they are harder to find, mere fleeting shadows against her weary, bruised heart.

Her bedroom is cool and silent and empty, just as she likes it to be. There is no evidence of a shared life, no sign of another body sleeping beside her. Anakin hasn't been there in…She has lost the count of days, has finally stopped feeling guilty about it. Adding together all the hours, days, weeks, months she has been parted from her husband would give her a tally too enormous: a marriage lived more apart than together. So she lets herself to be only aware of the days left for her to push a bill through a committee, the dwindling hours she has to persuade those with connections and influence and money.

She sits on the bed, breathes deep, enjoys the quiet. With ruthless purpose, she turns her thoughts away from Anakin, stops wondering where he is that very moment, no doubt waging never-ending war – that way lies a path to madness. Instead, she thinks of Naboo, the roaring waterfalls and the deep-green hills. The way the wind whispers among the reeds, the lonely cry of a hunting bird in the night. Her mother's strong, gentle arms around her.

In the never-sleeping city, there is only rot and duplicity and greed. Good men are scarce, fewer still who seek peace. War has become an industry, an occupation, a source of income. She is steered by it like any other, for she has learnt that to attain peace, one must wage war. With words or diversions or half-truths; with any means necessary.

Only with peace, will there ever be a chance for Padmé and Anakin to live together, as husband and wife. Only with peace, will there ever be a possibility of true home, of family.

Touching her flat stomach, the familiar ache arrests her breath, until she forces herself to exhale – inhale – calmly. For two months she agonized and planned and despaired; the same two months she hoped and dreamed and cherished. She knew it was impossible, but still she wished that the baby would be the thing that changed their lives, the way towards their very own peace.

It all went down the drain – literally – in a lump of blood. She had been relieved and angry and so very tired. She hadn't told Anakin of the pregnancy; she didn't tell him how it ended. After all, how could she tell him anything? He is never there.

Time is up; her precious minutes of cool silence are over. She rises just as a careful knock sounds from the bedroom door, her maid come to aid in her dressing. It's time to bind her thin frame with luxurious cloth, to paint her face to hide the dark shadows around her eyes. To draw all the strength she ever had to the surface, to don the impregnable mask of Senator Padmé Amidala.

Perhaps after tonight, they would be one small step closer to peace. It's all she can hope for now; all other dreams are gone.

-o-

The utter blackness of space can be hypnotic; a meditation of a sort. Outside the confines of steel and the steady drone of engines, is an infinite vastness. A cold and empty space, where time stretches onwards and backwards, where lives and deaths are meaningless and distant and without feeling. A nothingness that offers blessed relief from frantic, heated struggle; from raw, heart hardening violence. A void without any sound, without the shouts and cries and explosions, without the hum of a lightsaber.

One could think that this emptiness is the Force, but Obi-Wan knows better. It is only a small part of it; the rest is Light and Dark and everything between. True mediation is a journey through all these, a mastering of feeling and thought into serenity. These days, he finds he prefers to stare into the nothingness, into the blackness of space, sightless.

With every darkening day, he is stretched thinner and thinner. The more tightly he holds onto duty, to the Code, the quicker it seems to erode, wear away against the tide of warring armies of his own heart. True peace is harder to reach with every swing of the blade, with every hard won fight or bitterly lost battle. War marches on, infinite.

Almost unconsciously, he touches the bond he shares with Anakin; the uncountable strands of light and shadow tying them fast together. His former padawan is always at the back of his mind, both as a steady rock and a surging sea. The bond, at the same time too brittle and completely unbreakable, is a constant source of reassurance he knows they – he – shouldn't need. Whatever happens, wherever they end up, they will not be alone. In the darkest, most desperate moments, it's the only thing he knows he can rely on.

His small enquiry is met with equally slight acknowledgement; the equivalent of a shrug. As usual, Anakin is still awake, too restless and weary to slumber peacefully. Not that he is alone in that regard; too long has true sleep eluded them both, left them chasing after fleeting dreams, settling for fitful rest. He cannot remember the last time he slept a full night's sleep, without waking or being woken up in between. Cannot remember, when he last woke fully rested, at peace.

In the nothingness of space, there is no fatigue, no aching muscles or cracked bones, nor throbbing head. In the cold void, there is no doubt or fear, no passion or anger. There is nothing to care for, no one to reach, no one to touch. Some days, he prefers the emptiness to his own muddled mind, his own beating heart.

A light tug on the bond, unmissable as a whisper in his ear. Anakin, sensing his murky thoughts, sends a disapproving frown, followed by a half-formed question. Obi-Wan hesitates, not sure if he is in the mood for sharp, spiteful words or stilted, uncomfortable conversation; too often lately they have been engaged in both. They have the tendency to needle one another, to irritate the scab until it bleeds. It's because they know each other too well, because they have lived in each other's space too long, because they are the only equals in a ship full of men, in a battlefield full of subordinates. Or it could be something more – something that he doesn't want to name.

He gives a tug back, an acquiescent nod. He has no wish to be alone tonight.

The blackness of space recedes with every step he takes towards their shared cabin, the yawning vastness stitched together. The pulse of the ship drowns the empty silence, beating in a rhythm with thousands of hearts. Hundreds of thousands of men, all over the galaxy, still fighting, still killing, still living. He is one of them; Anakin is another.

He knows the truth of it now: as guardians of peace, they are only ever creatures of war.

-o-

Author's note: The title is from the song of the same name, by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.


End file.
